To get a dado rail?

[GreenSlimySnot]

House is 20 years old. Hallway is white bare balls and the stairs wall is huge (from ground floor skirting board to 1st floor ceiling). I’m thinking a dado rail will break it up a bit.

DH thinks I’m being unreasonable

Our house is 1980’s built and has them. I see them as a period feature of the time and refuse to lose them. Glad they’re possibly becoming acceptable again!

What @AmberLynn1536 means is that she lives in a mock-victorian house

We put one into our 80s house and I love it. The skirting and dado are painted in a blue eggshell and the textured wallpaper below the dado is painted the same colour in chalky emulsion. I think it looks really streamlined. We chose a totally plain dado with no detailing at all, so it hopefully doesn't look like we're pretending that our house is older than it is.

@ChaosMoon

On a house that modern, you could just paint up to the line if the dado rail in one colour and above it in another. Or even the same colour, but a gloss (if you're walls are smooth enough) or eggshell below and a mat above.

Could work as a compromise if DH doesn't want an actual do rail. There are plenty of images in Instagram or Pinterest that you could use to persuade him.

This is what I was going to suggest. I haven't done it in a hallway, though I'd consider it, but we've done it in my kids' room - it makes the ceiling look higher (ours are pretty low) but it's also just a bit more interesting and similar to a 'accent wall' when there wasn't a logical wall to accent!

Ssomeone I know did a two tone wall but it was like a sine curve. It looked good, and at the time they had small DC

It was less harsh than a straight line

@KirstenBlest

What *@AmberLynn1536* means is that she lives in a mock-victorian house

Okay, I see this isn’t the thread for an architectural historian. Victorian building was in a multiplicity of styles, which vary widely in their suitability for a classical interior scheme.

Enjoy doing whatever you like. Just don’t ruin actual historic houses by ripping out historic fabric.

If your DH really hates them then I wouldn't choose it as your hill to die on, to be honest. I'm sure there are ways that you can make them look great, but I do think they're tricky to get right.

I would definitely draw the line at a patterned border paper running round the wall a la 1990s decor though

We've just put up a new DADO rail in our lounge. You can get loads of different styles these days rather than the old-fashioned/boring ones that the likes of B&Q and Homebase sell. I think we got ours from a website called skirting world which had a huge choice of skirting boards, DADO rails and picture rails.

Enjoy doing whatever you like. Just don’t ruin actual historic houses by ripping out historic fabric

OK but if previous generations hadn't ripped out at least some of the historical fabric of their houses, a lot of us would still be washing in a tin bath, inhaling soot from oil lamps and going outdoors for a shit.

Personally, I'd love a few more original features in my home, as most of them have been removed by previous owners. But I'm also glad I've got double glazing, radiators and an indoor bathroom. I think we need to accept that progress and change are also part of history, and that not everything that is old can stay the same forever.

Our 1960s flat has a dado rail running through hall and living area - it had stripey paper and a flowered border when we moved in. I wanted to take it all out but I had this feeling half the plaster would come off as well so we kept it - cream paint at the top, white satin dado (and other woodwork) and a 2-shades darker cream below. I love it (but would still prefer to not have a dado rail!). I like the idea of block painting suggested above and if you both like it then add a dado rail afterwards?

We've got a 30s house with dado rails and picture rails all over the place and I quite like them, but wouldn't put one into a modern house I don't think.

Not great when selling a house. Prospective buyers' furniture often doesn't fit with the height of a dado rail.